Where’s the Palestinian Gandhi? Soaking in Blood Shed by Settlers

Yesterday, in the northern West Bank, outside the village of Aserra, a Jewish settler shot a Palestinian boy who was participating in a demonstration. Here is the picture of the assassin aiming his rifle and there is the picture of the boy after the bullet has hit its target.

UPDATE: Sheera Frenkel has spoken to the victim’s family and tweeted to me that the bullet entered by his cheek and exist by his ear. So by the grace of God it didn’t enter his brain, though it easily could have.

Pictures like this enrage me when I think of the inane questions of liberal Zionists like Gershom Gorenberg: “Where’s the Palestinian Gandhi.” Gorenberg makes his living off asking numbskull questions like this when the answer is staring him in the face. The Palestinian Gandhi, Nemer Fathi, age 24, is pictured here soaking in his own blood. The question shouldn’t be where is the Palestinian Gandhi. The question should be what will Gorenberg and the liberal Zionists do to stop the murder of the Palestinian Gandhis. When will they stop blaming the Palestinians? When will they recognize that the blame lies solely with Israel and that the timidity of the liberal Zionists allows their countrymen to continue to live under the illusion that they’ve done enough for peace and that it’s the Palestinians who haven’t.

These settlers are terrorists, but their government will not bring them to justice. That is the crime. That is where the Gorenbergs of the world should focus all their energy. He should identity this settler and demand the police arrest him. He should bring his liberal Zionist friends to the settlement and knock on the man’s door and make a citizen’s arrest (if such a thing is possible). And if the police won’t arrest him he and his liberal Zionist friends should camp outside the police station till they do.

But it’s so much more appealing to blame Palestinians instead of looking in the mirror to see where the real problem lies. It’s also appealing to smear critics like me by calling me an anti-Zionist in the pages of American Prospect instead of dealing seriously with the criticism.

Here is B’Tselem’s report on this incident. It makes clear that not only were police and IDF present at the shooting, that they did nothing to stop it. In fact, one shooter used a military issued rifle and was likely a soldier on leave and another was likely a police officer similarly off duty (or at least not in uniform):

On Saturday, 19.5.2012, around four thirty in the afternoon, a large group of settlers descended on the eastern outskirts of the village ‘Asira al-Qibliya, from the settlement Yitzhar. B’Tselem volunteer photographers filmed the events from two angles. The video shows the settlers, some of whom were masked and armed, throwing stones at Palestinian homes, and fires beginning to burn. One of the masked settlers was armed with a “Tavor” rifle which is only used by infantry soldiers, raising the suspicion that he is a soldier on leave.

Palestinian youths from the village soon arrived and threw stones at the settlers. A few minutes later, soldiers and Border Police officers arrived at the scene. During these moments, the video records the sound of several rounds of live ammunition being fired, but does not show its source.

Around 5pm, a group of three settlers are seen standing with a soldier in front of the Palestinian youths, while all around there is mutual stone throwing. Two of the settlers seen were armed with M4 rifles, and one was armed with a pistol. One of the settlers is wearing what looks like a police cap. The video footage shows the settlers aiming their weapons at the Palestinians and firing.
The firing injured village resident, Fathi ‘Asayira, 24, in the head. He is seen being evacuated from the area by a group of youths. He is hospitalized in a stable condition in Rafidiya hospital in Nablus. About fie other Palestinians were injured by stones.
The video footage raises grave suspicions that the soldiers present did not act to prevent the settlers from throwing stones and firing live ammunition at the Palestinians. The soldiers did not try to remove the settlers and in fact are seen standing by settlers while they are shooting and stone throwing.

B’Tselem wrote urgently to the Judea and Samaria Police requesting that those involved in the violent attack are arrested and prosecuted. Additionally, B’Tselem wrote to the Military Police Investigative Unit (MPIU) requesting that a military police investigation is opened at once into the suspicion that the soldiers did not adhere to their obligation to protect Palestinians from settler violence, and that one of the attackers was a soldier on leave. B’Tselem additionally requested that the soldiers are instructed to cooperate with the police investigation and identify the suspect in the shooting.

Here (and here) are the B’Tselem videos of the assault on the Palestinians. Though B’Tselem has demanded an investigation, we all know what the result will be–no result. A pro forma investigation in which the case will be dropped for lack of evidence or for lack of interest or for whatever reason the army and police choose. The reason: “injury while Palestinian.” Now, our big, brave pro-Israel readers will come forward and remind us that Palestinians threw rocks and therefore what should they expect. But keep in mind that the settlers, according to B’Tselem’s statement, not only threw rocks first, but had deadly weapons and used them, while the Palestinians had none.

While I do not support violence on either side, can anyone except the pro-Israel flacks not understand how homicidal behavior such as this is one of the single most incendiary elements of the conflict? Put yourself in the shoes of anyone who was at this incident. Or any Palestinian who sees the video. What would you think? What would you do? Ehud Barak already knows what he would do. He’s already said publicly in one of his rare moments of truthfulness and candor that if he were Palestinian he would be a militant. Personally, I know that I wouldn’t be. But I do know that I’d find other ways to resist. I do know that that could be me out there in the line of fire were I Palestinian.

Once again, I say that these settlers are Jewish terrorists and that a State which permits their rampant violence aids and abets terror. The State is an accessory after the fact. I pray that sometime down the line the settler leadership and military and police commanders who stood by and did nothing while this attempted murder happened will be tried before an international criminal court for their reprehensible behavior. Like the militia leaders of Croatia and Serbia during the civil war, who were tried and convicted for their collusion with ethnic killers, these Israelis too are no less guilty.

Know that the world will hold you accountable. That you do not represent Judaism as I and most Jews know it. That Jews with any moral sense renounce you just as most Muslims renounce Al-Qaeda terrorists. Any Jew or Jewish organization that does not explicitly renounce this chilul haShem is not worthy of the support of anyone in the Jewish community.

What a difference a year makes. I suggest you may want to watch Obama’s speech at AIPAC’s convention this year. I could bear to watch only the first 32 seconds, until the urge to put my fist through my computer screen became too overwhelming.

Vote Up0Vote Down Reply

6 years ago

Bob Mann

In reading the transcript of the speech, I don’t see what would have been especially upsetting, especially in the early portion of it.

What did he say in the first 32 seconds that made you so angry?

Vote Up0Vote Down Reply

6 years ago

Albert

Except Obama has conspired with Israel in a first strike of a cyberwar against Iran:

Finding Gandhi is not hard; every Palestinian who yearns for peace is Gandhi. The problem is finding F.W. a leader like de Klerk must be found from among Israeli Jews to lead the Jewish people away from the racism of zionism. Indeed, as much as Mandela and Tutu stood up against the greed and racism that was apartheid, so did de Klerk.

de Klerk describesing that Israel is an apartheid state and that Israel will not survive as an apartheid state; this is ultimately Israel’s existential threat.

Vote Up0Vote Down Reply

6 years ago

Haver

The problem is finding F.W. a leader like de Klerk

I’m afraid that De Klerk is more like Lester Maddox:

Speaking to CNN yesterday, Mr De Klerk apologised for the racial policies of the white-minority government that oppressed the black majority, but defended separate states for blacks and whites.”I have made the most profound apology… about the injustices which were wrought by apartheid,” he said.

“What I haven’t apologised for is the original concept of nation states.”

poster below brought up same point; apparently, it might be said that de Klerk is a 2ss fan; but, of course, zionism will not tolerate a 2ss; so there must be a 1ss and, according to de Klerk, that 1ss would have to be apartheid, which would die from within, or would have to admit to a secular 1ss and live in peace as a religious homeland for Jews, Muslims, and Christains.

My point still stands, though, despite de Klerks stupid remark; my point being that though there are probably lots of Gandhis among the Palestinians (refer to as Mandela and Tutu), there seems to be no one among the Israeli Jews to lead the Jews (‘settlers’ in particular) to the promised land.

“a leader like de Klerk must be found from among Israeli Jews to lead the Jewish people away from the racism of zionism”.

You have hit the nail right on the head. Your comment has the ring of truth shining thru.’ Only problem; IS there such a being as an israeli de Klerk, be it man or woman, powerful enough to lead the majority of those who appear to be oblivious to the prolonged suffering their government has inflicted on the Palestinian people for 64 years? If the answer is yes, Sir, Madam, please step forward. The world is waiting.

Vote Up0Vote Down Reply

6 years ago

Bob Mann

What is your source for this story?

I cannot find anything about it in any of the Palestinian news sources in English online.

A search for “Nemer Asiara” yields no results other than this blog, nor does “Aserra” come up anywhere as the name of a village in the West Bank (again, other than this site).

Do you have a link to any news outlet or blog that has any details on this?

I think I’ve tracked down some more info on this story. Part of it stems from the fact that the last name you have listed “Asiara” is not actually the name of the person who was shot, but rather the village. It seems that Asiara and Aserra are both references to Asira al-Qibliya, a town south of Nablus. The person who was shot, it seems, is named Nimir Fathi. Reports indicate that he was shot in the neck, though not necessarily by a settler, but possibly by a member of the Israeli armed forces who had been called in response to clashes between settlers and local villagers. In any case, it appears that the victim’s last name is Fathi, that the village is Asira-al-Qibliya.

Don’t be daft. The Palestinian was shot in the neck by the settler holding the rifle. They show the aftermath of the shooting with another Palestinian shaking his fist at the shooter. Are you blind or thick?

As for your other corrections, thanks for finding the victim’s full name. I was working from the original photo which I displayed.

Vote Up0Vote Down Reply

6 years ago

Bob Mann

With respect to the shooting, I had read that IDF forces came and were firing as well, that’s why I thought it might have come from them. However, it does look like you were correct in your initial assessment.

With regard to the name of the victim I’ve also seen him identified as Fathi Assayara.

Vote Up0Vote Down Reply

6 years ago

Deïr Yassin

Palestinians have many names 🙂
In the Arabic text next to the pictures in Richard’s article and on videos that I’ve seen, his first name is Nimr (Nimir, Nemer), meaning: ‘tiger’. Arabic doesn’t write short vowels but Nimr would be the direct transcription. In one of the videos, a girl is also heard screaming “Nimr”.
His family name is more complicated as it contains multiple sounds that don’t exist in European languages: something like Asay(a)ra/Asay(a)reh. Just like you’ll see Haniya/Haniyeh – Rahma/Rahmeh etc. The second ‘a’ is long, and the first ‘a’ isn’t really an ‘a’ but a gutteral, and the ‘y’ could be ‘i’ and….
I’ve only seen ‘Fathi’ on Maan News, I think, so I would go for Nimr Fathi Asayara or Asayareh.
In the text in English above they only made a mistake switching the second ‘a’ and the ‘i’, so Nemer Asaira is correct too.

That is really fascinating. Thanks for sharing your knowledge of the language!

Vote Up0Vote Down Reply

6 years ago

Deïr Yassin

The name of the village is ‘Asîra al-Qibliya, it’s situated south-west of Nablus and close to the settlement of Yitzhar that according to a recent report by ‘The Jerusalem Fund’ is considered the most violent settlement in the West Bank.
In order not to be blocked by too many links, I’ll just give the name of the report:
“When Settlers Attack”.
There are some good maps: on p 15 there’s a map of the Nablus Governorate, and on p. 43 a description of the Yizthar ‘actions’ in 2011.

Here are lot of photos and live images from the attack yesterday where you can see the IDF being present. There are other videos on the net from Btselem where you can see various agressions on ‘Asïra al-Qibliya by settler thugs under the protection of the IDF. One showing the stoning of the village from the hillside, and another where the thugs destroy the water-pipes, always protected by the IDF.

After the last photo, and just before the video
“D’autres photos de l’attaque ICI” = a link to many more photos.

Oh, I forgot to mention that the settler thugs had come to ‘Asîra escorted by the IDF scumbags to set farmland and olive trees on fire.
Just in case someone might try to ‘explain’ the images as the settlers being agressed.
And this kind of actions of course has nothing to do with why Europeans largely dislike Israel, not that these images will ever ever be shown on television here: that would be antisemitic, wouldn’t it ?

Vote Up0Vote Down Reply

6 years ago

Deïr Yassin

Here’a another longer footage posted by Btselem. It gives more perspective: you see several Taliban-Cossacks with arms, shooting at the Palestinians on the very outskirts of the village, the fields burning behind the settlers, and the IDF assisting the settlers in holding back the Palestinians, preventing them from access to the burning fields.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgeQzvIirvQ

Vote Up0Vote Down Reply

6 years ago

Joel

Thanks Deir.

The French link you provides shows stone throwers disregarding precepts of non-violence, along with I.D.F. troops trying to separate the unarmed settlers (dressed in white with kippahs) from stone throwing youths.

Thank you for only confirming my post in which I predicted the line of argument of rightists like you. B’Tselem notes the stone throwing was provoked by the settlers who threw first and then brought the heavy artillery in the form of lethal weapons. Can you also show me the images of the IDF arresting or even restraining the settler who tried to kill the Palestinian youth? I missed that.

Vote Up0Vote Down Reply

6 years ago

Deïr Yassin

@ Joel
Yeah, you mean Palestinians throwing stones on the doorstep of their own village against Cossack arriving from the neighbouring settlement, setting their crops on fire ?

You did vision the video I posted later at the bottom of the thread, right [it has been added at the ISM French website too] ? The one showing dozens of settler thugs coming down the hillside before the fire.
I asked the Hasbara here who pretends that the Palestinians set the fields on fire (their own fields ! ) to explain how the Palestinians managed to get behind the armed settlers to set the fields on fire. Maybe tou have a spin to offer ?
And tell me why do ‘peaceful settlers’ never film when they are agressed by Palestinian ‘invaders’ ?

“IDF troops trying to separate the unarmeds settlers from stone throwing youths”
We didn’t see the same footages then. Or maybe you don’t have enough light in Yuli Edelstein’s basement ….

RE: “These settlers are terrorists, but their government will not bring them to justice.” ~ R.S. MY COMMENT: Yes, the settlers are in many instances terrorists, but they are the Israeli government’s terrorists. They are implementing the settlement policy of the government of Israel that is designed to foreclose a two-state solution. Consequently, the the government will not any more bring these settler terrorists to justice than it would bring the government of Israel itself to justice. They especially will not bring these settler terrorists to justice as long as the AIPAC-hogtied U.S. acts as the Israeli government’s enabler regarding such self-destructive policies as the settlement/occupation project. SEE: Fighting Settlers’ Impunity and Immunity, by Pierre Klochendler, Inter Press Service, 12/16/11 (excerpt)…The Israeli occupation, particularly the future of wildcat settlements built by settlers without formal government approval has been a simmering issue ever since their creation during the 1990s. In 2005, former head of the State Prosecution Criminal Department Talia Sasson published a landmark report on the question. Commissioned by then prime minister Ariel Sharon, the report found the Israeli government guilty of “institutional lawbreaking”* and of the theft of private Palestinian land to covertly establish over a hundred “illegal outposts”. The damning irony is that the “outposts” were a 1997 initiative by none but Sharon himself, then foreign Minister under Netanyahu, who’d urged settlers to seize hilltops in order to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state. The report recommended criminal investigation against those allegedly involved in the scheme, but it was shelved. Repeated injunctions have since pressed successive governments to address the issue… ENTIRE ARTICLE – http://original.antiwar.com/klochendler/2011/12/15/fighting-settlers-impunity-and-immunity/ *P.S. RE: “…the report found the Israeli government guilty of ‘institutional lawbreaking’ …” BRANDEIS ON ‘BLOWBACK’: Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis elaborated in Olmstead v. United States (1928): “In a government… Read more »

Vote Up0Vote Down Reply

6 years ago

dickerson3870

P.S. ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF ISRAEL’S “INSTITUTIONAL LAWBREAKING”: Arrested, beaten and threatened with rape. A personal testimony, By Leehee Rothschild, +972 Magazine, 5/18/12 (excerpts) Israeli protesters arrested after a demonstration in solidarity with Palestinian hunger strikers in Ramle on May 3 testified to suffering extreme police violence and abuse while in detention. Their complaints have been filed by Adalah with the Justice Ministry’s department for police investigation. Here is one protesters’ personal testimony. It is Thursday and we’ve come to protest in front of the Israeli Prison Service hospital in Ramle, in which some of the hunger striking Palestinian prisoners are held. . . . . .We are sitting at the station leg shackled to one another, waiting to be interrogated, although we were never informed that we are either arrested or detained. There are only two of us girls. The boys are in the other room. . . . . . One of the girls is sitting on the bench beside me; an officer places his fist on her head and tells her “If you dare speak even a single word, you shall be punished.” We are screaming and struggling as they take her away, but they shove us back to our seats, yelling “Sit down you stinking Arabs,”, and “Don’t you move, bitch.” We can hear the tasers at work in the other room, and there’s nothing we can do. When she is brought back, she can’t stop shaking. From that point on the threat of the tasers is out there and always present, buzzing in the office next door, or posed as a threat, every once in a while. . . . . . Worse than the physical violence are the humiliations and sexual harassment. They laugh at me for being near-sighted. They tell me that I can’t… Read more »

MY COMMENT: I wonder what Barbara Streisand will have to say about this. That is, if Babs can tear herself away from raising money for the IDF long enough to read about what is actually going on in Israel.

FOR INSTANCE: Israel’s bizarre decision to give up on education – and its future, by Ami Kaufman, +972 Magazine, 12/03/11

(excerpts) Last week I came across a disturbing story, one of many recently, where Haredi school boys threw stones at secular Jewish school girls.
[BECAUSE] The schoolgirls were singing. . .
The story was only mentioned on a local news website and didn’t get much attention. In this climate, where Israel is becoming increasingly more nationalistic and more religious, stories like these just don’t surprise people any more.
Sure, the news has been dominated with stories of women having to sit in the back of the bus, or of rabbis who don’t want male soldiers to hear female soldiers singing at ceremonies and so on.
But what bothered me more about this particular incident was the age of the perpetrators. These were young boys or teenagers, already well versed on the issues of female singing and its dangers.What this incident shows more than anything else, is the education factor and how it will change this country. And it shows how incidents like the one above are going to happen again, and again and again.
Much has been said on the demographics of the Haredi community and the pace at which it grows. But not many know of how huge an impact Haredi education already has on this state.
These Haredi rock-throwing boys learn in a Haredi school. . .

P.P.S. ALSO SEE: Why IDF soldiers stand idly by when settlers attack Palestinians, By First Lieutenant (Res.) Dana Golan, +972 Blog, 5/25/12 (excerpts) Last Saturday, a B’Tselem video camera captured an incident of settler violence that began with rocks being thrown at Palestinians near the village of Asira al-Qibliya in the outskirts of Nablus, and ended with live shots fired by the settlers and a wounded Palestinian youth. Anyone who saw the video could easily make out the IDF soldiers standing next to the settlers, doing nothing to stop them. Those watching from the sidelines may have been surprised by the useless stance of the soldiers. But anyone who understands the reality in the Occupied Territories well knows that that this is just another example of the long-entrenched paradigm that constitutes the basis of IDF activity on the ground: We are not here to protect Palestinians. Not when the settlers burn their olive trees or throw rocks at them. And not even when settlers shoot at them. . . . . . After the Shamgar Committee investigation [in the wake of the massacre by Baruch Goldstein in 1994], the rules of engagement changed. The command to wait for a weapons jam was replaced with the direction to “instruct the shooter or person endangering life through other means to cease his actions, or to try to overpower him immediately, while using reasonable force.” In the case that the shooter is not deterred by the soldiers’ requests to cease fire, they are required, according to the IDF instructions, to carry out something similar to the “procedure for detaining a suspect”: shots in the air, shots towards the legs, and only then, shots to neutralize the danger. This is how it is on paper. In reality, the soldier on the ground receives oral… Read more »

Vote Up0Vote Down Reply

6 years ago

Liron

The incident was reported in Israel by channel 10 news (5 min ago) and according to channel 10, 3 Palestinians were wounded but no death was reported.

So where is your information from ?

Vote Up0Vote Down Reply

6 years ago

Deïr Yassin

I think Richard was mislead by the verb ‘shoot’ in the English translation and interpreted ‘shoot’ as ‘shot and killed’. The text in Arabic says that the settler “opened fire on” and in the headline to the video that I embedded with the live footage, it says “wounded by settler bullet” in the headline” and “Israeli settler opened fire on young Palestinian” below.
No Palestinian media mentioned deads, but that one was hit in the neck by a bullet and is in a serious condition (cf. Maan News).

Did Channel 10 News mention that the settlers had come from Yitzhar to set the crops of Asira al-Qibliya on fire, and that the IDF protected them ? Or was it ‘explained’ as Palestinians just agressing peaceful Israeli civilians ?
I’m curious to know.

Vote Up0Vote Down Reply

6 years ago

Liron

Tell you the truth i don’t remember what was said in channel 10 news.
But the net is filled with chatter that present a totally different story. According to the story, the residents of Asira al-Qibliya were the one who set the fields of Yitzhar on fire. The Emergency response team from Yitzhar went down the hill the to put the fire off, and were confronted by 200 people who through rocks on them. In an attempt to protect the fire group, someone from the emergency response team open fire and wounded 3.

According to the chatter this is the 3rd or 4th incident in the last 4 weeks, which take place either on Friday or Saturday and in my opinion if it is true it can provide an explanation why there are no videos on behalf of the settlers (they can’t carry equipment, either then life protection equipment, guns included)

Now i have no idea who’s telling the truth, personally i don’t trust either side. Life experience taught me that the truth is somewhere in the middle. with that said, the YouTube video attached is edited,and show’s nothing but clashes, i wouldn’t judge anything according to it.

So you’re claiming there is “chatter” on the internet and according to this “story” the Palestinians set the settlements fields on fire. Not only do Palestinians generally not do such things (if they did they know that settlers would rampage through their villages and wreak far more damage than merely burning down settlers’ fields), but your chatter comes from places like Rotter and similar slime bucket sites which you don’t even name. Once again, you’re pathetic. You have no idea who’s telling the truth. You only want to present an alternative pt of view just for honesty’s sake, right? The truth is “somehwere in the middle,” huh? Not a chance buddy. You don’t speak anything remotely resembling the truth. You speak lies.

Vote Up0Vote Down Reply

6 years ago

Liron

and the reason for your disgusting personal attack in violation of own comment rule is ?

This YouTube presents it better, it is obvious the the settlers are trying to put down the fire between time mark 0:38 – to 0:41 you can see 2 of them that are equipped with M4, and one that is equipped with fire related equipment (i don’t know the translation but in Hebrew it’s מחבט לכיבוי אש) You can see at 0:33 the soldier approaching towards a Palestinian group and rocks being thrown at him, the person with the green shirt who was shot was clearly throwing rocks at the people from Yitzhar. You can see hi in time marker 0:40 – 0:42 running towards the people throwing rocks, etc. And we all know that rocks can hurt people and even kill them.
My conclusion, there was nothing peaceful there by all sides.

At 1:10 you can see the people of Yitzahr on a higher location to the left putting a fire off, so i think (but i do not know) that the Palestinians were the one who set the fire, and not the other way around.

Vote Up0Vote Down Reply

6 years ago

Deïr Yassin

I already posted this video further up the thread !
And you’re totally wrong: the fields set on fire belong to the village of ‘Asira al-Qibliya, and they were set on fire by the settlers. They do that all the time, all over the West Bank, and you don’t know that, and why ?
The agression is taking place right on the doorstep of the village of ‘Asîra, and the video posted by Btselem is filmed by people from within the village. You didn’t see the footage till the end, or you just posted the ‘explanations’ given by the Hasbara Central ? Incredible how a right-wing Zionist can manipulate facts and live images.
And I gave the name of a report with good maps of the area, “When Settlers Attack” further up the thread too.

So these poor, heavy armed settler thugs from Yitzhar – the most violent settlement in the West Bank – were defending ‘their’ fields set on fire by Palestinian, what, ‘invaders’ ?

There are numerous videos on the net showing settlers attacking ‘Asira al-Qibliya. In fact, Btselem has given video cameras to most Palestinian villages so they can at least try to film some of the attacks. Just google and you’ll have plenty of choices.
Here’s one:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y57SlkBuuvo
You can always ask the Hasbara Central to ‘analyse’ the images their usual up-side-down way.

“Life experience taught me that the truth is somewhere in the middle…”
Cry me a river, will ya ! How can you have any ‘life experience’ when you can’t even remember what Channel 10 News said about this incident an hour ago !

Vote Up0Vote Down Reply

6 years ago

Liron

You make no sense for one reason only
The people putting the fire off are clearly the settlers from Yitzar, you think they will move a finger to help put off fire on a Palestinian field ?

Look at google map, the distance between the eastern side of Asira al-Qibliya to the western side of Yitzar is less then 1km, very close, both have fields there, and judging by the topography in comparison to google maps, the fire was closer to Yitzar then to Asira al-Qibliya.

as for your nonsense about hasbara central, i work for them as much as you work for the Palestinian propaganda ministry, this nonsense is getting very old very fast. about time you will deal with facts (as i gathered from watching the video you posted) and not fiction.

If settler from Yitzhar put out a fire they did so because they started the fire & feared it would endanger their own fields. Yitzhar is the most racist, most homicidal settlement of all in the West Banks whose residents have already killed Palestinians & routinely set fire to Palestinian fields. If you think they’re putting out a Palestinian set fire you’re out of your mind.

My attack on you derives from the fact that a settler terrorist nearly killed a Palestinian youth and you try every which way to excuse the attempted murder. That’s disgusting & you’re damn straight I’m gonna call you on it. If you don’t like it tough luck.

B’Tselem handed out cameras & video to Palestinians allowing them to document crimes of the settlers & Occupation. If the settler terrorists, IDF or police have their own video let them show it. I presume you have excellent contacts among them & can suggest it to them. But I expect unedited video that doesn’t just show Palestinian stone throwers. I expect video showing settler stone throwers as well.

Too bad, Jerusalem Post disagrees with your assessment of the credibility of the images. They feature an article about the video which accusses settlers of firing on Palestinians. Even your own far right media turns against you. Too bad!

NRG talkbacks aren’t slime buckets? Of course they are. I could go into the Maariv talkbacks & in 30 seconds find a comment begging someone to kill a left wing Israeli or Arab. And you know it. Maariv is the playground of the Israeli nationalist right. Perhaps slightly less right wing than Yisrael HaYom, but not by much.

Vote Up0Vote Down Reply

6 years ago

Deïr Yassin

@ Liron
“The people putting the fire off are clearly the settlers from Yitzhar” and “It’s obvious that the settlers are trying to put down the fire between time mark 0:38- to 0:41”

I have now visioned this footage at least 5 times, at maximum size and in slow motion. There are absolutely NO settlers trying to put out fire between min 0:38-0:41. The settlers we see in this time frame are in the front, and the fire is far behind them. It’s simply not true. I only see someone running towards the fire in the back ground around 0:50, but we can’t see anything clearly nor anything else than he’s running.
So you basically claim that the inhabitants of ‘Asira al-Qibliya filmed and later posted footage – through Btselem – contradicting their own side of the story. How lucky for the settlers, huh ! since they didn’t bring their own cameras to show the whole world that the Palestinians set ‘their’ fields on fire.
I don’t know whether to pity or blame you.

Vote Up0Vote Down Reply

6 years ago

Liron

@ Deïr Yassin
Boring to talk to you
At : 0:31 there are 3 settlers in the frame 2 are holding M4 the third one is holding a Nupla Fire Swatter
At 1:10 you can see settlers (different one) equipped with the same NFS, arriving at a fire location above, and working to put it off.
At 1:23 you can see for a glimpse second that there is a big gathering of a lot of Palestinians, the photographer doesn’t show them at the beginning, why ?
At 1:24 – 1:26 you can see a settler at the top of the hill equipped with an NSF who’s working to put off a fire.
The settlers are clearly blocking the residents from getting closer. The settlers are making an effort into putting off a fire, you think they would do so if it was a field owned by Palestinians? Not the group from Yitzar.
AT around 2:00 you can see the NSF at work.

I’m not saying those settlers are saints, far from it. Neither are the villagers. May i remind you that in 2008 one of the villagers entered Yitzar, stabbed a 9 years old and burned down a house.

Shall we go into the murders by Yitzhar residents of Palestinians? Far more Palestinians have been wounded & murdered by Yitzhar residents than the other way around. Have you also forgotten the wonderful yeshiva Od Yosef Chai, whose student launched a handmade Katyusha rocket at a nearby Palestinian village? And why have you left this out? These settlers are murderers. They have homicidal rage inside them. The villagers do not. As for the rest, practically everything you say or write is bulls(^t.

Vote Up0Vote Down Reply

6 years ago

Deïr Yassin

@ Liron
The fields are owned by the village of ‘Asîra al-Qibliya, you can argue all you want, but that’s simply a fact that you can’t change !
“It boring talking to you”
Yeah, isn’t it ! Then don’t answer ! In your first comment you claimed that settlers are trying to put down the fire between time mark 0:38-0:41 but there is NO such pictures at that time mark !
And now you point to time mark 0:31 where we simply see a settler with a fire swatter far away from any fire.
Only at time mark 1:26 do we actually see a settler apparently knocking on the ground with a fire swatter on the hillside.

Why don’t you look at the footage I posted at the bottom, and try to find an ‘explanation’ for that ?

And I’ll quote from Haggai Matar who’s written an article on 972mag in the meantime:
“It’s unclear from the videos who exactly started the fire…. However, the fire is destroying Palestinian fields very close to the village and did not appear in the first video showing the settlers’ approach [the one I’ve posted at the bottom]. Two facts that might support the Palestinians’ claim that it was started by settlers.”

Don’t waste your time trying to argue that neither the settlers not the villagers are saints. I know that trick too well: comparing the occupiers and the occupied, the thief and the bestolen.

Blaming the victim. But perhaps the only remaining tactic would be to adopt that of the rapist who says the female victim “wanted it.” Liron might argue that the Palestinians had asked the settlers in a nice friendly way to burn their own fields down & the settlers were being all too accomodating of the request. Works for me.

Vote Up0Vote Down Reply

6 years ago

I wonder

Liron, I have no idea why you are refusing to accept the obvious i.e. if you are a settler who goes out to set fires then IT IS OBVIOUS that you would take some Nupla Fire Swatters with you.

Q: Why would you do that?
A: Because fires have a nasty habit of turning around and going the wrong way.

Lighting fires is not an exact science; you can’t always predict which way they are going to go, especially if you are a dumb-as-shit settler with more firepower than brainpower and more religous fervour than commonsense.

The settlers crested that ridge and took control of that slope: you can **see** that in the 3rd video.

There is no fire when the settlers took control of that slope: you can **see** that in the 3rd video.

B’Tselem, which was there, says the settlers started the fire just as Deir Yassin says. THis is a particularly clever line of hasbara. You claim that those who set the fire actually put it out. In actuality I bet the fire prevention equipment was there to prevent the fire which settlers set from actually harming the settlements fields and property.

Your propaganda efforts are as usual for naught.

Vote Up0Vote Down Reply

6 years ago

Liron

You mean a B’Tselem photographer who happens to be a resident of the village was there.

He clearly has an agenda, sorry not very credible.

Vote Up0Vote Down Reply

6 years ago

Liron

And just FYI read again the Betselem report, they didn’t say that the settlers started the firs, they are saying fire beginning to burn, they do not blame the settlers.

“The video shows the settlers, some of whom were masked and armed, throwing stones at Palestinian homes, and fires beginning to burn”

Vote Up0Vote Down Reply

6 years ago

I wonder

“You mean a B’Tselem photographer who happens to be a resident of the village was there.”

You are clearly unaware of B’Tselem’s program to distribute video cameras to all the Palestinian villages….

The aim is this: to ensure that EVERY act of violence by the settlers is recorded on camera, and then that camera is handed back to B’Tselem, who then take the evidence to the Israeli authorities with a “please explain”.

“sorry not very credible.”

No, sorry, you aren’t…

Vote Up0Vote Down Reply

6 years ago

I wonder

Liron: “they do not blame the settlers.”

Followed by the quote where B’Tselem points out that:
a) The settlers were on that slope, and
b) The fire started on that slope.

So, excuse me, Liron, but how did the Palestinians set fire to that slope?

Did they drop napalm from their Palestinian Airforce F-16s?

Have they invented self-immolating stones that can be launched from flame-thrower slingshots?

Or did they pop out of a tunnel, torch the place, and then escape before those settler thugs even had time to grunt “Huh? Did anyone see anything?”

Honestly, Liron, your arguments are so threadbare that they resemble a kids fairie story.

Vote Up0Vote Down Reply

6 years ago

Davey

“Liron’s” account is implausible. Settlers are armed, Palestinians are not. Palestinians would not instigate violence against an armed camp under the circumstances. In addition, settler violence, including the burning of Palestinian fields, is pretty much standard operating procedure for the violent settlers. Liron is implausibly suggesting just the opposite that unarmed Palestinians instigated violence with armed settlers. Utterly implausible.

More plausible — and not a golden “somewhere in between” — these settlers intended to destroy Palestinian fields and spark violence which would then allow them to use the weapons provided by the IDF.

The Israeli government, and the Israeli community, including the settler heroes are beneath contempt by any measure. The IDF refuses to implement Supreme Court orders, the government’s policy includes the theft of other people’s property and the strangulation of an entire people. These behaviors, this state and these people, all of them, liberal or not, do not represent Judaism and are sorry excuses for mere human beings at all. Small wonder Israel is very lowly rated on the corruption scale. Beneath contempt. Everyday I try to do something to obstruct Israel, Zionism and the corruption of my heritage by these bandits. Every single day, something.

I meant the word “assassin” as in someone trying to kill someone, which the settler clearly was trying to do. Assassins want to kill someone for political or religious reasons, but don’t always succeed.

Vote Up0Vote Down Reply

6 years ago

I wonder

Exactly. There is a difference between the plain meaning of “assassination” and “assassin”.

You need a dead body before there is an “assassination”, but you don’t need a dead body for someone to be an “assassin”.

Vote Up0Vote Down Reply

6 years ago

Deïr Yassin

Thanks, I didn’t know.

Vote Up0Vote Down Reply

6 years ago

Liron

You used the word assassin, and the first comment is about a murderer.

Don’t think the issue is with my ability to read.

Vote Up0Vote Down Reply

6 years ago

Carl

there’s reading and then there’s reading comprehension — anyone w/ vague notion of reading comprehension would be OK with the word ‘assassin’ for a shot to the neck from close range.

There’s a new footage added on the French ISM website that I posted in the beginning of the thread:
“Beginning of ‘Asîra al-Qibliya”.
A woman is filming from a window within her house, and we see dozens of settlers coming down the hillside, and the fields are NOT on fire at that moment. So if someone at the Hasbara Central can explain to us how the inhabitants of ‘Asîra managed to get behind the settlers and set the fields on fire, I would be very happy !

Vote Up0Vote Down Reply

6 years ago

I wonder

Well, I would suggest that Btselem didn’t fall out of a tree yesterday so, yeah, I would expect that they have kept some footage in reserve for when the IDF spokesmodel starts spinning nonsense about how this is all the Palestinian’s fault.

Give that spokesmodel enough rope…..

Vote Up0Vote Down Reply

6 years ago

Piotr Berman

I made the same point at +972. The Israeli group first runs toward the village, which is rather easy because they run from the top of their hill down. Then they are close to the village, with guns, which together with Shabbat observation probably signifies that they treat the village as part of their “homestead”. At that point a fire starts behind them, somehow.

One theory could be that a village youth started a brush fire to trap the settlers away from the settlement. That does not explain why the settlers had fire-swatting rockets with them that they took before the fire. Thus I think that they had experience how to move through a field with burning grass and clumps of burning bushes.

Vote Up0Vote Down Reply

6 years ago

I wonder

“Once again, I say that these settlers are Jewish terrorists and that a State which permits their rampant violence aids and abets terror.”

Richard, you are being much, much too kind, because it can be implied from that statement that everything would be A-OK if only those settlers were “peaceful”.

Regardless of whether (or not) these colonists are violent is to miss the point i.e. they are C.O.L.O.N.I.S.T.S., and so their very presence in this occupied territory is a grave violation of International Humanitarian Law.

That the Israeli government even lets them be there is a very, very serious war crime, and the Israeli public simply will not wake up to that fact until senior Israeli leaders are arrested and frog-marched to The Hague to face prosecution before the ICC.

Vote Up0Vote Down Reply

6 years ago

dickerson3870

RE: “Yesterday, in the northern West Bank, outside the village of Aserra, a Jewish settler shot a Palestinian boy who was participating in a demonstration.” ~ R.S. ALSO – WATCH: Settlers shoot Palestinian in head while soldiers stand by, by Haggai Matar, +972 Magazine, 5/20/12 A 24 year-old Palestinian was hit in the head from a live round of bullets Saturday in the village of Asira al-Qibliya. B’Tselem footage of the event shows the settlers shooting at the young man, and Israeli soldiers standing by them – doing nothing to prevent it. (excerpt) According to B’Tselem, the incident started at around 16:30 Saturday, when a group of settlers descended from the extremist settlement Itzhar towards the Palestinian village (as seen in the first video below). According to eye witnesses the settlers – some of them masked and some armed – started fires in the fields near the village and threw stones at Palestinians who moved towards them, who also started throwing stones at the settlers. Videos shot by residents of Asira al-Qibliya and B’Tselem show a fire in the fields, settlers and Palestinians in confrontation, and soldiers standing near the settlers, yet mostly uninvolved. Amongst the settlers are three people armed with two rifles and one hand-gun, one of them wearing what seems to be a police hat. According to B’Tselem, one of the rifles is a Tavor – commonly seen in the hands of Israeli soldiers. At one point (between 0:40-0:55 in the video below) one of the settlers is seen aiming his rifle at something, then Palestinians start throwing stones at him, and then he and his partner open intensive fire towards the stone throwers. A soldier nearing the settlers is seen running away back to the direction he and other soldiers were coming from, not preventing the… Read more »

depends on how you look at it. de Klerk’s statement from your cite is not inconsistent w/ what I posted at all — rather more of a 2ss scenario. of course if you understand that a 2ss is not consistent w/ zionism, rather zionism will only accept a 1ss ‘Jewish state’, then your post is not applicable to the I/P conflict; but still could be used by the zionist as a veil.

The point of my post was obviously that ultimately to make peace it takes two to tango.

Vote Up0Vote Down Reply

6 years ago

Haver

He should bring his liberal Zionist friends to the settlement and knock on the man’s door and make a citizen’s arrest (if such a thing is possible).

The Eichmann precedent surely illustrates the government supports just about any method of making the initial arrest. Israel’s laws don’t really apply in a de jure sense beyond its own borders. It just retained in personam jurisdiction over its citizens living in the settlements.

Vote Up0Vote Down Reply

6 years ago

Davey

Israel kidnapped the nuclear whistleblower (what’s his name?) from Italy or Greece. Israel is a law unto itself, does whatever it wants, to whomever and gets away with it every time. The only countervailing force unfortunately are organized Islamists and their agenda.

Yossi Gurvitz has a great piece on the attack on ‘Asïra al-Qibliya by Yitzhar Talibans.
Some of the ‘specialists’ around here claimed that Yitzhak Shapira wasn’t really a Zionist, and that the Palestinians weren’t the topic in “the King’s Torah”, but according to Gurvitz, Shapira participated in a raid on the village last year.

You’re allowed to violate the laws of Shabbat for the defense or preservation of (Jewish) life. That would be the excuse they’d use to desecrate (IMO) Shabbat.

Of course The King’s Law is about anyone who will grow up to kill Jews. And who pray do you think will do this? Martians? Of course he directed his words against them.

Vote Up0Vote Down Reply

6 years ago

Deïr Yassin

Others settlers in the South Hebron Hills filmed on Monday by Ezra Nawi from Ta’ayush.
Settlers arrived to try to prevent Palestinians from harvesting their crops, protected by Internationals.
In the first video, a settler threatens “If you film me I’ll kill you” and then steals the camera given by B’Tselem to a Palestinian and destroys it.
In the second video, the settler is screaming “I’m the authority here” and when the soldier threatens to arrest him, he scream “I’m the law here”. Yep, that’s the problem, and of course the settler wasn’t arrested.
As Gurvitz proposes in the article that I posted earlier: it’s maybe time for an international force in the West Bank to protect the Palestinians.http://972mag.com/i-am-the-law-activists-film-settlers-attacking-palestinians-in-west-bank/46487/

Richard, This Torat HaMalech, is the Haredi’s who believe in it, or the Nationalist Religious camp, Do Orthodox and Conservative or both believe in it? or is it just Rabbi Shapira himself and his flock? I’d like to know how many of the settlers actually believe this to be law. They are growing in Israel, so this is a serious problem. Remember it’s not just Palestinians, Yigal Amir (nationalist religous) used the ‘Rodef’ law to kill Rabin. The Haredi’s are anti Zionist. It’s the Nationalist Religious camp which is the Al Qaeda of Israel. Moshe Feiglin and other undesirables belong to this cult. They are the Jewish version of the CUFI Armeggeddon cult. How To Kill Goyim And Influence People: Leading Israeli Rabbis Defend Manual for For Killing Non-Jews http://maxblumenthal.com/2010/08/how-to-kill-goyim-and-influence-people-leading-israeli-rabbis-defend-manual-for-for-killing-non-jews/ As soon as it was published late last year,Torat Ha’Melech sparked a national uproar. The controversy began when an Israeli tabloid panned the book’s contents as “230 pages on the laws concerning the killing of non-Jews, a kind of guidebook for anyone who ponders the question of if and when it is permissible to take the life of a non-Jew.” According to the book’s author, Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, “Non-Jews are “uncompassionate by nature” and should be killed in order to “curb their evil inclinations.” “If we kill a gentile who has has violated one of the seven commandments… there is nothing wrong with the murder,” Shapira insisted. Citing Jewish law as his source (or at least a very selective interpretation of it) he declared: “There is justification for killing babies if it is clear that they will grow up to harm us, and in such a situation they may be harmed deliberately, and not only during combat with adults.” In January, Shapira was briefly detained by the Israeli police, while… Read more »

I’m not an expert on the fine points of Orthodox Jewry Israel-style, but my impression is that there are Haredi camps that are non-political and ones that are engaged politically & support the settler movement. My impression is that Shapira & Yitzhar is Haredi of this variety. But others can correct me if I’m wrong.

I think Torat HaMelech definitely resonates among all or almost all Orthodox settlers (excluding my friends Myron Joshua and Rabbi Froman). IT would certainly resonate among far-right Orthodox Israelis living within the Green Line as well. I’ve written here before about some of their rabbis like the chief rabbi of Tzfat, Rabbi Wolpe, Yeshivat HaRav, etc.

Richard,
It’s a complicated thing, i’ve seen people refer to all ‘orthodox’ as Zionist fanatics, but actually a lot of the Haredi are anti Zionist, I don’t mean the Neturi Kerta, i mean your run of the mill Orthodox

People tend to lump them all together, judge them by the way they dress, but they are not a monolith, nor do they all share the extremist nature of this Itzhar crowd.

People also forget that some of the secular or atheist Zionist fanatics, who are non religous can be just as genocidal and repulsive. Most of Bibi’s right wing fanatics fall into this category, Lieberman is one such, you could call these nationalist fanatics,

To complicate things further, they don’t like each other even though they share the same goal of a greater Israel with only Jews or non Jews as second class or inferior citizens. Exactly as Hamas want in their imagined greater Palestine.

Leading fundamentalist rabbis gather in Israel to defend the publication of a book, Torat Ha’Melech, that attempted to provide halakhic justification for the killing of non-Jews, including innocent children and families. The gathering exposed not only the ferocious racism of a swath of Israel’s pro-settlement rabbinate, but the powerlessness of the government to stop them.

For those who are not aware, the co author of ‘Torat HaMelech’, Yitzak Shapira is the head of the yeshiva of this settlement, Yitzhar Yeshiva. In April 2011, he was caught red handed raiding Asira Al-Qibiliya on Shabbot.

Sorry, I said above the Nationalist Religous, but the secular rightists like Lieberman and Bibi’s Likud (secular or atheist right wing) are just as bad. They may not need the religous justification of Torat HaMelech, and may even despise the settlers, but they are no less fundamentalist and do share their goal, albeit using the IDF rather than pogroms and stones and fires, and pulling up olive groves.

Vote Up0Vote Down Reply

6 years ago

Deïr Yassin

After having torched farmland belonging to the village of Mâdamâ on Thursday, the Cossacks from Yitzhar went ‘pogromising’ again today in the nearby village of ‘Ûrîf.
They set fire to olive groves and fired at several Palestinians trying to protect their fields.
One person is in a grave condition.
Sarit Michaeli, from B’Tselem, was there and clearly saw the settlers torch the field. The IDF was there to, and as usual didn’t stop the settlers.
Various videos in the article:http://972mag.com/watch-settlers-set-fire-to-palestinian-olive-grove-man-shot/46876/

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

You can adjust all of your cookie settings by navigating the tabs on the left hand side.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

disable

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.